


with a love i seemed to lose

by GildedButterflyPath



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, F/M, Normal Life, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:07:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24828811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GildedButterflyPath/pseuds/GildedButterflyPath
Summary: "A once-bright star in this country now looked dim, and your heart shudders at the sight. He looks like a man who has taken a few-too many kicks to the soul and was now floating alone in the void of a life he had once hoped to have." Steve Rogers/OFC, beginning just after his return to the past in Endgame. Mature themes & mild language. Rating for safety & future chapter content.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

_Ophelia._

_Hey, Ophelia._

_Hello? Are you even listening to me?_

_Ophelia!_

That last one snaps you back into reality, where you _had_ been listening, but no longer were. Honestly, you were trying to wrap your head around the mission to which you had just been assigned, but that was something your cousin would never understand.

Peggy Carter was many things, but patience had never been her virtue. Of course, this time she seemed more agitated than usual, like she just wanted to give you this mission and be done with it. _Why?_ you ask yourself. _What is it about this particular job that has her so on-edge?_

"Yes, cousin," you respond, to which she sighs. You should have addressed her as Agent Carter, but you meant to grab her attention and, thus, regretted nothing. "Please continue."

"Oh, I have your permission then, do I?" she snaps, and you raise your eyebrows.

"What's got you so irritated?" you ask and, again, she sighs, but noticeably relaxes this time.

"Anyway," she says as if continuing some conversation you had yet to begin with her, "the mission is simple - point A to point B, with no stops in between. After this, you're free to return to reserves without a tether."

"And what of my request for relocation?" you ask before you completely forget to.

"Have you chosen a location?" she asks, her voice hinting that she already knows the answer.

Your hands fold together in your lap, fingers twisting around themselves and tugging nervously. "Not as of yet...I don't really _know_ of any..."

Peggy nods as your voice trails off and she interjects "Well, upon mission completion, you'll be given some time to make a decision, so I would begin thinking of places you could go, either here in the States or back to England."

" _Not_ England," you state firmly, surprising yourself with your own adamance.

Even Peggy seems startled by your sudden formidability. "There are plenty of places in the States to settle down, and you've got time to think about it...and I _would_ think about it."

The remainder of the briefing goes off without a hitch, and soon you're gathering your things and heading to the holding area to meet your current charge. The click of your heels against the tiles seems to reverberate off of the walls as you walk, hoping silently to yourself that this will be the last time you will set foot on the grounds of Camp Lehigh.

You never cared much for this place and as the disarray of the front receiving office passes you by, you feel justification for such a thought. With the war having just ended two months ago, there is still a sense of commotion, the question "What now?" ringing in the back of every mind.

The world around you is trying desperately to return to what could be called "normalcy," though the new "normal" would be far different than the world you have left behind, a planet ravaged by war then left on its own. You believe that a static life _will_ come, but getting there will be far from simplistic. How wrong you were.

You round the corner into the holding cells and you open your files in search of the name of your charge. Peggy had been exceptionally and uncharacteristically vague in her description of your mission, which was to be a simple escort-then-drop type of deal, and she refused to give you your pick-up's name, and as your files reveals the name to you, you instantaneously know why.

Steven Rogers.

_Captain America is my charge?!_ you think, mind suddenly scattered over this revelation. You have seen his movies and heard time and time again of his heroic efforts during the war, but you were now entirely unsure of how to conduct yourself. Everyone in America and some lucky - some _un_ lucky - folks overseas had heard of him and his deeds, tales of unmatched bravery and a man whose skills in battle could not be overstated, and then you see him and another wave of shock finds you.

There he sits - Captain America - looking so unlike himself that it's unreal. His broad shoulders are slumped and his spine decompresses, a far-cry from his usual at-attention stance. His clean-cut hair is unkempt. His face has five-o-clock shadow looking more like ten-o-clock shadow. His clothes appear worn-out, even for a military uniform. But all of that was an overture - an opening act for the truly broken part of him you could not look away from: his eyes.

Sparkling, steely-blue hues appear truly shattered. A once-bright star in this country now looked dim, and your heart shudders at the sight. He looks like a man who has taken a few-too many kicks to the soul and was now floating alone in the void of a life he had once hoped to have.

You've never seen a being so helpless, but your body aches to help him. Straightening yourself and your skirt, you approach him gingerly, making certain not to startle him too much, not that anything you could have done in the moment would've shaken him.

"Steven Rogers?" you say, your voice as tender as you'd ever made it sound. He doesn't flinch, doesn't bat an eyelash at the sound of his own name, and you hurt more for him than before. "Captain America?" This time he blinks, then turns his gaze toward you. Your spine tingles at the connection of your gaze with his, but you don't let it show. "I'm Agent Beaumont and I'm here to escort you to Houston."

"Texas?" he questions, voice barely above a whisper. "What's in Texas?"

"Your next assignment, I believe, though they didn't give me all the details." You try to keep all of this strictly professional, but your femininity yearns for him to open up to you, to blurt out his pain and share his hurt, but you keep to yourself. _Maybe later_.

His expression shifts, conveying to you that he is considering another course, but then is gone, back to the broken look he had before. "Alright," he says, an unsteady firmness in his voice, "I'll go."


	2. Chapter 2

As you step into the plane, your left hand instinctively grips the handle of your bag tighter and your right hand holds the hem of your skirt to keep it from rising any higher. You place your bag beside your seat, within arms' reach, and you then take your seat. You hope to God that Captain Rogers takes a different seat, _any_ seat other than the empty one beside you. Steve decides to take a seat across from you, and your heart feels a little lighter at the closeness of his presence - a comfortable distance from you, but close enough in proximity that you won't worry about his wellbeing.

His eyes are on you and you suddenly struggle to swallow. _God, he looks so handsome..._

"Not a fan of flying, I take it?" he questions, catching you off-guard.

"I'm sorry?" you respond, quirking an eyebrow in his direction.

"As soon as you took your seat, you buckled your seatbelt and pulled the strap as tight as it would go."

You truly didn't want to answer him. You knew that answering this could only lead to trouble down the road because he would have fuel to make you uncomfortable - not that _he_ , in particular, _would_ make you feel uncomfortable, but you could never be too careful. To you, the alternative was enough to make you uneasy on its own. Then again...

"Yes," you say adamantly, tugging your skirt down as tightly as it would go, "well, you can't really account for safety."

"Flying is the safest method of travel - trust me," he says almost too quickly. He catches himself and you smirk at his sudden vulnerability. "I'm sorry. It's not my intention to deepen your fears."

"I'd like to think it's a...healthy fear," you comment, pulling his files from your bag and beginning to sift through them. You can feel the weight of his gaze on you, and suddenly you feel the material of your skirt constrict your thighs as if to stop you from breathing properly. You clear your throat at the first sign of a lump forming in it, and swallow away the next fear threatening your already tense experience.

He is silent through his stare, and you are mush under the weight of it. You want to verbalize your need for him to stop looking at you like that, or at least to give you some kind of space, but you know it is far too early in your acquaintance with him to demand anything, so you keep it to yourself and shift uneasily in your seat instead.

"Interesting reading?" he asks at last, and you are grateful for him breaking the silence. "I mean, if you want to know something about me, you could just ask."

You pause, heeding his words, your fingers slipping on their grip around the folders. "You think I'm learning all about you?" you question before you can stop yourself.

"The fact that your eyes have been glued to a folder with my name on it means that my bet's on 'yes.'" His eyes find yours and you melt a bit again, this time realizing that such a feeling is beyond your control. "What do you wanna know?"

"You have a lot of uncertainty surrounding the details of your return," you blurt out, now causing you to wonder why you're just saying these things without restraint and where such a freedom came from. "Why did you come back?"

The plane shifts a bit and you grip the arm rest beside you, knuckles whitening. "I mean, it was kind of mandatory to come back, right? Otherwise, they'd have either labeled me dead or missing in action, neither of which was true." His voice is admittedly honest, but you can't help the feeling that he's definitely holding back from you. _Who wouldn't hold back? This is a very personal subject for him, obviously._

"Yes, clearly." Your own hard words catch in your throat. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be demanding. You don't have to answer anything you're uncomfortable talking about." You know what you want to say next. The very syllables tantalize the end of your tongue like electricity, striking you into saying exactly what you want to, the thing you want to know above all else. "It's just..." _Here you go again! What is with me?!_ "...you essentially had a free ride outside of this militarized life. You didn't have to come back. You could've started over _anywhere_ as _anyone_...but you came back to where it all began."

His face darkens and you immediately regret your urge to know everything about him all at once. He is clearly thoughtful at your words, and there appears to be something on _his_ tongue that _he_ wants to confess, but he can't. Not yet. So the initiative is left to you to stop him...and you do.

"Captain," you say before he can speak, catching him a bit off-guard, "that was entirely out of line and I apologize. I shouldn't have said those things."

He seems warmed by your words and he grins softly, an expression you return. "You know what, I might just answer those things to you one day, Agent Beaumont," he states, and you blush at the professional name of yours rolling off of his tongue. He says no more about it and you know why. You're also thankful that your melted insides allowed you to take such a stand with your unfiltered tongue to keep from embarrassing yourself _too_ much. You can embarrass yourself just fine without your tongue getting in the way.

The remainder of the flight goes off without so much as a hitch, and soon you're in Houston. The climate is quick to remind you why you hate the heat so much, but you take it as you do everything else: in stride.

A private on duty escorts you to the colonel's office, where he is ready to meet you and Captain Rogers.

"Colonel Warner," you greet with a solid handshake, "this is Captain Rogers." He shakes hands with Steve as well before looking over the folder you hand off to him. "He's here to receive his next orders."

"I've missed your accent, Beaumont," Warner comments as his eyes scan the page. Steve looks at you standing by his side and you clear your throat uncomfortably under his questioning glance. "I'm afraid these are incomplete orders."

"How so, sir? Those papers were all I received to hand off to his next command."

"That's just it, Beaumont. He doesn't _have_ a next command."

"Pardon?" Steve says from beside you, and you startle at the sound of his voice.

"I was just handed discharge papers for a Captain Steven Rogers this morning." Warner places his files onto the desk, opening the cabinet behind him to retrieve what he was talking about.

"There must be some mistake, Colonel," you say with a half-smile. "I was firmly instructed to escort Captain Rogers here so that he may receive his next assignment."

"His next assignment is discharge," Warner says, handing you the papers of confirmation. "It's honorable, Captain Rogers, I assure you, but this states that he is officially no longer an active member of the military and has been subsequently retired."

Your eyes search the paper, scanning for all the information you have just been given, and it's the truth. _Captain Steven Rogers is no longer a member of the military_.

"What of his benefits hereafter?" you ask, immediate in your bid to make sure that your charge is taken care of. "Are they automatically put into place with his retirement pension to be delivered every month?"

"Actually," Warner states, grabbing a rather large envelope from behind him, "this is all the months of back-pay for all the time since he was killed in action."

"I'm sorry, sir," Steve interjects, "but wouldn't it be strange for a dead man to receive a pension if he was, in fact, dead and unable to receive it?"

The gruff laugh that Colonel Warner emits startles both you and Steve, causing for his hand to bump into your skirt. You both glance sideways at one another and he cautiously takes two steps in the other direction to prevent that from happening again. _Damn_.

"You're absolutely correct, Rogers," the burly Warner states with a soft scratch of his uniformed belly. "Apparently, it's a farewell gift from MI-5 and one Agent Carter. She's the one who arranged all of this in the first place."

You don't have to look at Steve to feel his face become expressionless at the mention of Peggy and of her hand in honorably discharging him into retirement without prior knowledge. White-knuckled, you grip the new sheets in your hand, crinkling the edges some. "Well, in spite of all of that riveting information, it would seem there has been a terrible misunderstanding of this entire journey on my part, so I apologize, Colonel," you state regretfully, keeping yourself as professional as you can though you feel your blood begin to boil.

"No apologies necessary, Beaumont," he dismisses. "Besides, now you, too, are free to turn to starting a different chapter of life." Steve passes you a glance, but you don't look at him, shaking Colonel Warner's hand before departing his office and exiting the building.

You're completely bewildered by all of this, the worry more for Steve than for yourself. What exactly is he supposed to do now? He hadn't planned for this, and you've never been this lost on an assignment before. The woman with all the answers you are no longer, and that frightens you. Uncertainty frightens you.

"Well, that was a waste of a plane ticket," Steve comments, shoving his hands into his pockets as he takes a seat on a nearby bench in the shade.

"I am so sorry, Captain," you apologize. "I wish there was more certainty for you, definite answers about where you'll go from here and what you'll do." He remains silent, clearly pondering many things, so you are the one to pace. You feel like you're fidgeting, and you hate that there's no lines of information on the next steps to take. _I hate not having a plan_.

"Can I tell you something, Agent?" Steve says softly, and you immediately take a seat near him so that you can hear him better.

"Of course you can," you admit, folding your hands into your lap.

He tilts his chin upward, looking around at the bustle of the base with a nod. "It's...it's rather _freeing_ to know that I don't have a predestined assignment. Now maybe I can get some of that life that someone once told me I needed."

You frown, knotting your fingers together, admiring the freshly painted nails you possess for the first time since redoing them a few days ago. "I wish I had more instructions to give, or at least some kind of direction."

"Looks like we're, uh, kinda in the same boat, huh?"

You nod, tucking a stray curl back behind your ear. "I, too, am done with assignments and missions and the lot of it. Although, I wish they had _some_ kind of direction for me."

A long moment passes between the pair of you. The only sounds that you can hear are from the honking horns of military vehicles driving onto and off the base grounds. "I guess I _could_ go back to Brooklyn. Stick to what I know, you know?" Your eyes scan his face, seeing a fleck of determination cross his features for the first time since you met him the previous day. "I could buy a car with some of that pension money and drive there. Take my time, look at the sights, just enjoy it."

"That sounds absolutely lovely," you agree. "I hope it will bring you the closure you need by the time you return to Brooklyn."

"Come with me."

The sudden turn of his words shocks you to the core, and you instantly meet his eyes. There is longing behind the piercing shade of blue, adventure and the promise of a bright future just on the other side. Your heart begins to race within your chest and you shake your head fervently.

"Captain," you say to steady yourself, and it doesn't work, "you're not serious."

"I've never been _more_ serious."

Your throat is suddenly dry so you quickly rise to your feet. "You can't mean that. This is to be _your_ cathartic journey, not mine."

"Why can't it be _yours_ , too? You said it yourself - you lack a direction for what to do with your life now. Why can't this be the start of your new future? We can drive to Brooklyn and take our time. Who knows? Maybe you'll find your new home along the road, and, if not, Brooklyn can be your new stepping stone until you find where you're supposed to be."

You shake your head, eyes widening and blinking rapidly. "This is so strange...and _very_ unlike me."

"Really? Because I think it sounds _exactly_ like you."

You break away from his gaze, hands planting firmly on your hips. He is right: you don't have a home, nowhere that is just for you. You never really have. Now, this beautiful and enticing man is offering you the trip of a lifetime to find yourself and who you truly are outside of the military, and you're unsure. You want to say yes so badly, to take his hand and jump into the unscripted unknown like you never have before. You want to take charge of your life and begin in a brand new direction doing all the things you couldn't do before, and begin it all with another disconnected soul by your side to help you through this major transition. You want to do this so badly.

So you jump.

"Yes," you state adamantly, turning to face him. He rises to face you, grinning wildly. "I will go with you."

"Looks like we're traveling buddies now, Agent Beaumont."

"Looks that way, Captain."

"Please. Now that we're on an adventure together, it's Steve."

"I'm Ophelia to you now then, I'll have you know."

His grin stretches even more, revealing his beautifully pearly whites. "Ophelia," he croons and your insides swoon, "let's get outta here."


	3. Chapter 3

"Are you feeling alright?" Steve asks you, breaking the terrible concentration problems you've been having since waking.

"It's just a lot to take in," you respond, removing your sweaty palms from your jumpsuit pockets. "I've never purchased an automobile before - have you?"

He shakes his head, placing his suitcase beside yours. "No, so this will be a learning experience for both of us." You smile at him, straightening your suitcase beside his to better match the placement and align them better. "You know that they don't have to sit perfectly, right? No one here will audit the placement of the suitcases to make sure they are aligned perfectly."

He's right. Neither of you are in the military anymore, so no one will audit the placement of things and punish you for disorganization. You know that. You knew it from the moment you woke up this morning, so you should feel freer... _what gives?_

"That will definitely require some reprogramming on my part," you respond, straightening your shirt. "Sorry."

"No need for apologies," he says, opening the door to the dealership to allow you to enter before him. "This is new to me, too, remember?" You enter before he does, clutching your handbag as he removes his fedora to enter the building. You smirk at the sight of his hat in his hands, trying to keep your expression to yourself. You fail. "What's funny?"

"Nothing," you answer, clenching your muscles in a terrible attempt to keep the apples of your cheeks from blushing any deeper than they already were.

"You smiled," he comments, tapping the front bill of his hat against your forearm. "I've not seen _that_ look before."

You fold your arms across your chest, keeping your handbag right by your side. "I don't think I've ever seen you in a hat before, aside from a photo in your file of you wearing standard issue helmets. It's just...strange to see you wearing something so mundane, is all. It's becoming."

He, too, grins and he appears to redden - you actually said something that made him blush just as you did. "Thank you," he says firmly. "It's all I can do to make sure I'm kempt."

"Well, I don't think _you_ can _be_ _un_ kempt, even if you're not supposedly at your best. Your 'not your best' is still much better than others _at_ their best."

Steve laughs a bit, and your heart swells at the sound. This is the first time you've heard a real laugh from him and you feel like you could fly. "Where _is_ everyone?" you ask, noting that the place seems empty, save for a few model automobiles on the selling floor. "You'd think that - "

"Howdy-ho, neighbor!" a salesman says, bursting from a room nearby with the biggest, toothiest smile you've ever seen on a human being. "What can I do for ya today?"

"We are here to purchase an automobile," Steve responds, shaking the man's hand. "You'll have to help us out here - neither of us have ever done this before."

"Well, I think that I can find a few discounts for newlyweds. Congratulations on everything!"

Steve looks at you by his side, both your eyes and his having a conversation about having to play along with this man. If you don't, you'd lose what could prove to be a valuable discount. If you do, then your emotional integrity will be compromised and it might reveal to Steve that you're attracted to him. Your mind races as quickly as it's ever gone, flashing past what's about to happen before it even happens...

"Thank you so much," you say before your brain can tell your mouth to shut the hell up. _What are you doing? Maybe you misread what Steve was trying to convey with his eyes! Those icy blues...those beautiful blues..._ "We're quite happy." _You stupid bitch...what's he going to think?!_

"Yes, we are, darling," Steve jumps in, wrapping his arm around you without missing a beat. You melt within his grasp, instinctively stepping closer to him, warming up inside of his tender grasp. There is nothing constrictive about this closeness, not at all like you'd thought there would be. Instead, this feels right, like it was always supposed to be like this.

_You lucky bitch_.

The salesman begins to rattle off a few ideas for new automobiles to the pair of you, but your brain is abuzz with the contact occurring between you and Steve. Luckily there is a couple of layers of clothing between your respective skins, but the electricity is rampant and real and you can hardly catch your breath. You hope to God that you're not blushing as bright pink as you feel inwardly. You wish for more contact, dreaming of his skin and yours colliding, but such thoughts are considered unladylike. _What does that word even mean, anyway? This is really happening, and it feels so good._

Soon the salesman leads you two outside to the main lot, and your ears are still ringing when a smooth voice breaks your lack of concentration.

"What do you think, honey?" Steve says, his hand gripping the material at your waist and clutching it tightly.

"Whatever you want, husband," you respond, flashing him a soft and sweet smile. And that's when it happens. You place your hand directly over top of his where it lies on your waist. A sharp feeling strikes you as you do so, but it isn’t off-putting. The feeling quickly warms to become a familiar feeling, even though this is the first skin-to-skin contact you've had with him.

"You've got a deal then, sir!" Steve bursts with a grin, shaking the man's hand and immediately letting go of you entirely. Almost instantaneously, you feel empty without his touch. You long to reach out and resume the touch, but the moment is lost, and as the pair of you step back into the offices to fill out a bit of paperwork, you realize how little about all of what had just happened you truly knew. Steve had done all of the work, and now something else was bothering you: you had been so immediately and forever different because of a simple affectionate pull which had, quite literally, brought the pair of you together...had he felt the same thing you had?

Such a silly question. There must be a hundred women on his mind, all of whom he loved and longed to get back to. Perhaps someone was waiting for him back in Brooklyn and that's why he wanted to move back there. Perhaps she was everything he needed. Perhaps she was perfect for him in ways you never could be. Perhaps she was just perfect. Perhaps.

Within about twenty minutes, the pair of you are on your way out to the automobile Steve had purchased, and as you step up to it, you're a bit awed.

It's a sleek, faded green shade with chrome accents, and you knew he had picked a good one. Not that it mattered - though the pair of you had feigned a marriage for a discount, this was _Steve's_ transportation, not yours.

"Steve, it's _lovely_ ," you compliment, and he eyes you suspiciously.

"Are you sure you can stand to be seen driving cross-country in it?" he asks strangely, and you're taken aback. "I don't want to embarrass you at all."

"Embarrass me?" you repeat, shaking your head as you move to the passenger door. He is there before you, opening your door to allow to get into the vehicle with dignity. _Such a gentleman_. "Being around you could never embarrass me, Steve. In fact, I'm quite proud to be seen around with Captain America."

Steve hesitates as you slide into your seat, a blank expression crossing his face as he closes your door until it latches and then he places your suitcase and his into the boot of the vehicle. You can sense that your words had made him feel uneasy, and you now wish you hadn't framed that in the manner you had. _I'm sorry..._

"So where to first?" you ask as soon as he had settled into the driver's seat. You hoped that by breaking the silence, he would relax and finally begin to settle into the arduously long drive ahead.

"Well, we should probably get some gas first," he jokes, pointing at the dashboard where the gas gauge was low. "And we can ask for the best roadway while we're there." He glances over at you, and you meet his eyes, noticing the burgeoning look of adventure in his blue hues, and you become his all over again.

"Ready?" you ask, and he grins.

"Let's head out."


	4. Chapter 4

You feel like there is too much silence between the pair of you, an empty void of space which is just yearning for one of you - neither one in particular - to break the dark quiet which has somehow filled the car for the last couple of hours. Sure, the two of you have just begun this trek to Brooklyn, but seeing as the last words anyone uttered were "let's head out" which was now two hours past, nothing but a silence has passed between you. And you hate it.

You continue to watch the landscape as it passes by, albeit at a slower pace than you would prefer. A maximum speed of 35 miles per hour was all that had been allowed since the States had entered the war as a preventative measure on not wasting fuel that was to be sent to the troops and their allies. You wish the car could go faster, even an extra 5 miles per hour, to help speed up the process. Did you truly _want_ this to end faster though? With regards to being in Steve's presence, no. With regards to ending the pain of the all-encompassing quiet, absolutely.

"You hungry?" Steve questions, startling you all of a sudden, and making you quite grateful for the seeming synchronization of your mind with his.

"Not yet," you lie, feeling your stomach twinge a bit from lack of sustenance. "You?"

"I could go for a bite, but it may be best to wait until the sun's a bit lower," he suggests.

"Then we should keep our eyes peeled for a place to sleep tonight," you state, seeing him nod out of your peripheral vision.

"Are you nitpicky about where you lay your head?"

His question seems out of the ordinary, but then again not really. He is assessing your need for luxury and whether or not you can settle for what is available rather than pulling out all the stops. You've never been a luxurious or self-centered type where personal comfort is concerned, but a decent-looking place couldn't hurt.

"Not particularly," you admit with a light shrug of your shoulders, and his aura resonates that he is impressed by this. "I have slept in all manner of accommodations, so anything with a set of decent sheets will more than suffice."

"'All manner of accommodations,'" he repeats, a gentle upturn of the corners of his mouth sending your soul reeling. "So you're admitting that you've been through the wringer, then?" You nod, your gaze returning to the landscape out your window, the breadth and open road preferable to the heat he was rendering from beneath your cheeks at that moment. "Working for MI-5 must've earned you all kinds of experiences."

You know that he was inviting you to speak about some of those experiences, but you couldn't always tell the difference from one mission to the next. After a couple of years doing what you did, always the same, over and over, they all ran together and amounted to a lump sum of nothing much accomplished. And that was _not_ something you wanted to admit to Captain America.

"You know," you begin, and he shifts a bit, his wrists twisting and readjusting his hands on the wheel, a sure sign that you have his attention, "those really aren't stories you want to hear."

"If I _didn't_ want to hear your stories, I wouldn't have asked to hear them," he admits, and you _know_ you're blushing deeply.

"They're nothing compared to your accomplishments."

He snickers slightly. "Guess I'm just itching for _different_ accomplishments. You must've saved some lives then?"

"Some." You think back to a particular mission which had gone wrong, and you lost your charge to those you were trying to protect him from. It was the one you regretted the most, and you doubted that he had too many stories like that. He was the great Captain America, again. "If you want to know about some that made it into my files, I can lend you my personnel file when we reach our stay-put for the night."

You know instantaneously that you have said something incorrect or at least not what he wished to hear from you, and you frown, keeping your eyes from his gaze.

"If I wanted to read your file, I'd ask you for it," he says, physically turning his head for a moment to look at you. You can feel those icy blues leaving a burn on your neck, but you don't turn to meet his gaze. You can't. "I want to hear those stories from your own perspective. What happened, how they changed you, that sort of thing."

"'How they changed me'?" you repeat, breaking your streak of not looking at him. "Why would that prove relevant?"

"It's relevant to the two people currently in a car talking while they take a journey across the country," he explains, and you feel sheepish about his answer. "You are forever changed because of the things you've done and the things that have happened to you, and it changes how you view the world."

"So you're interested in how I see the world?" you question for clarification, your bottom lip sinking beneath your top row of teeth.

"Absolutely I am," he admits with adamance, and you breathe a sigh of relief. _He wants to get to know me, too._

"I'm sorry," you apologize, glancing at him. The way the sun casts its beam into the cab and strikes his face causes your entire existence to pause and just breathe in his beauty. _He is, without a doubt, the most beautiful being I've ever seen_. Your heart yearns to make him yours and to tell him that you are his, but you can't. Not here. Not now. Not yet. "I'm not accustomed to being with someone for longer than a day or two, so the prospect of letting down my mental walls to get to know you...it _frightens_ me."

"It frightens me, too," he admits, meeting your gaze for a moment before returning his sights to the road ahead. "But we are here, now, and there's nothing I would rather do."

Your mind suddenly races through the options of things to tell him about, picking out a few key missions in your arsenal which you know for a fact have changed your worldview. You are readying yourself to break out from your self-confinement, but then he speaks and breaks that desire.

"There's a sign there for a hotel just off the road ahead." Your hands fold within your lap, polished nails gleaming a bit as your fingers twist together nervously. "Do you want to see if they have a couple of beds for the night?"

"Yes." You know how cold your voice probably sounded just then, but now you're eager to reach that hotel and separate from him for the night so that you can finally rest...but would you be able to _breathe_ without his air to soothe you to sleep?

A few miles pass and soon Steve is pulling the car off of the road towards where the signs are directing you for a small hotel. The front of the place seems inviting against the orange-colored sky in the background, a sure sign that night was fast-approaching.

The front desk bellhop explains that there are two rooms available for the night. You both pay for your rooms separately and the bellhop whisks your baggage away to their proper rooms. You are pleasantly surprised that a hotel this small employs a bellhop, but you are grateful for the safe care of your belongings and of Steve's.

At Steve's questioning, the bellhop says that there is a lounge and restaurant just next door, and you are once again pleased at this find of a place.

Once the pair of you are seated in the restaurant across from each other, you are glad to be sitting across from him this time, although now it will be more difficult to avoid his gaze. And it's not _that_ far of a distance between you.

Your eyes glance over a sheet of paper in front of you which lists the few items of food they make and sell. It all seems to be meats - red-blooded meat patties, mystery meatloaf, and something called a...a...

"What is a 'hot dog'?" you ask, glancing up from your paper, and Steve chuckles at your question.

His face falls when he realizes that you are not making a joke, and suddenly you're quite embarrassed.

"Wait," he says, placing a hand up onto the table, "you've never had a hot dog?"

"I don't even know what it _means_ ," you admit before your mouth can stop from speaking the words, and your cheeks are now flaming red. "Forget it. I will just order a salad or something."

"No, no, no," he blurts, the peckish grin on his lips toying with all of your heartstrings at once. "A hot dog is a meat in a bun. Usually there are condiments put onto it, whatever you wish that they offer."

"But is the meat made of...of _dog_?" you ask, and he is quick to shake his head.

"Not at _all_!" he blurts. "It's...it's made of...well, it's made of...actually, I think it's some kind of pork, but I should've asked what it was at some point before I left."

"Before you left where?" you question, and his eyes flicker up to meet yours. You see his emotion change to something much darker than you expected from him, and you feel your heart tug and pound with the knowledge that you shouldn't have asked him something like that, although you don't know why. It didn't matter. You vowed to yourself then and there to never make his face look like that again. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked - "

"No," he interrupts and you couldn't thank him enough for stopping you short, "you're free to ask me questions like that. I just...I don't know how to answer that yet."

"Then whenever you're ready or not. Not like we don't have quite a journey ahead of us or anything."

_Smooth._

He appears relieved when you speak those words, and you settle back into your seat. "So how do you recommend I eat this hot dog? What condiments should I order?"

"I like mine with mustard and ketchup, and maybe onion if they have it." He seems to relax a bit more when he speaks. "That's how I used to order them whenever Bucky and I went to a game."

"Baseball, I assume," you say, and he nods fondly. "Who's Bucky?"

He smiles reminiscently, and you love that expression on his already perfect features. "He is... _was_...my best friend."

"Did he die?"

"No, he didn't, but he's far away now."

You know that answer will suffice so you don't ask him anything more than that.

When the waitress comes to the table, her eyes scan Steve's face and she lights up.

"Well, _hello_ ," she greets, and Steve looks up at her respectfully, and only momentarily. "What can I _do_ for you?"

You hate her tone. She shouldn't be talking to him like that. He's not here for her. Your heart hopes that he feels that way. The moment she speaks like that, his eyebrows raise in surprise at her emphasis, but then his eyes find yours and lock onto them.

"We'll have two hot dogs, both with mustard, ketchup, and onion, and then a couple Cokes will do. Thank you so much."

He is not short with the waitress, but he makes it clear with his words that her insinuation was not welcome. She leaves in disappointment, and you swear you see her blonde ponytail droop in the sadness of the rest of her.

"You _know_ she had a _tone_ ," you point out, eager to hear why he was so quick to order and dismiss her.

He half-smiles, glancing down at where he has his arms crossed across his chest. "Yeah, I heard it..."

"She _is_ quite cute," you say, and he shrugs, "or weren't you interested? You're a free man now. You have the whole world ahead of you with so many options."

"I know," he says, his eyes flashing back up to meet your playful blues. "She just didn't interest me like that. It's nothing personal to her...I just wasn't interested...in _her_." His eyes are locked on yours as he bores right into your soul with just his eyes. Your heartbeat races within your chest and your blood pumps quickly, setting your nerves on edge and causing your palms to clam up. You _know_ what he means, but you're terrified by the answer. You are interested in him as well, but you have only known him for a few days. It's too much, it's too soon...it's...

"Feeling nostalgic?" you ask suddenly, clearly wanting to refrain from deepening that subject any further at the moment. "What made you want to have the same thing as me?"

He blinks, and the sensual look in his eyes is gone for the moment. _Damn me._ "I haven't had a hot dog in forever, and I would love to share in your experience. Is that...is that too bold of me?"

_Given what you just said to me moments ago, no, Captain America, it is not. Goddammit, why is it so difficult for me to call him 'Steve'?!_

"Not at all. I welcome new and shared experiences between us," you admit, biting your bottom lip, a fact that he notices and flashes a soft smile at. "Was _that_ too bold of _me_?"

He smirks, releasing his arms from across his chest and letting them fall into his lap. "Not at all," he says, repeating your phrasing from before.

~~**::::** ~~  
~~**::::** ~~  
~~**::::** ~~  
~~**::::** ~~

He walks you to your room door, and you can still taste the tantalizing taste of the hot dog on your tongue. His hands are shoved into his pockets, and you wish they were free. Then again, perhaps it was best that they weren't or you would attempt to hold his hand. Would that be such a bad thing?

"I'm glad that was a good experience for you," he comments as you both stand on the carpet outside your room door. The lamps on the walls are casting a gentle, yellow glow against his skin, and you lock the sight of him away for a rainy day. The way he's looking at you now is as if the pair of you were coming off of a date, and it kind of feels like that is how the night has progressed. Nothing is out of place here. Nothing is wrong. Everything is as it should be, how it should _always_ be.

"Ophelia," he croons, catching your attention, "I _will_ tell you about what happened to me after that plane went into the water. I just...don't know _when_ that will be. I hope you understand that this is not to dissuade you from asking about my past or what all happened to me. You're free to. I may not always have a clear answer, but I will give you as much as I can. I hope that will be sufficient."

"As long as you answer me in some fashion," you begin, your tone gentle, "nothing you say could be _in_ sufficient. Please know that you can always tell me when you're ready, or not. Whatever is best for you is good enough for me."

He seems so relieved to hear those words from you, and it seems for a fleeting moment that he is about to lean in to kiss you, something that you weren't ready for but would gladly accept. Instead, he awkwardly sticks his hand out for you to shake, and you take it, shaking it firmly.

"Thank you," he says, and you nod. "Goodnight, Ophelia."

"Goodnight, Steve," you return with a voice barely above a whisper as you turn the key into the lock and open the door, disappearing behind the doorframe and closing the door softly behind you.

You want so badly to open the door and yank him into your room with you, to hell with his luggage, but you stop short, leaning your forehead against the wood of the door. You can't hear into the hallway, so you have no idea how long he lingered outside the door, or if he even did.

That is enough for you.

Right now, it _has_ to be.


	5. Chapter 5

"So what're you drinking?"

Steve's voice suddenly reminds you that you're sitting side-by-side at a bar counter. The stool you're currently perched on was so comfortable that you had actually forgotten where you were for a moment. The sights and smells of the bar refill your senses, and you're overwhelmed by the view you find yourself looking at.

You feel underdressed at the moment, as if your soft green linen dress with off-white lace accents on the hems and three-quarter sleeves was somehow not classy enough for a conversation with a man like Steve Rogers, even within a bar. Your fingers instinctively feel for the lacy collar reaching up to the base of your neck, wishing you could tear away at the fabric where it seems to be closing around your throat and preventing you from breathing properly. It wasn't, in reality, but it felt so constricting. Perhaps it was psychosomatic. Perhaps it was the way Steve was looking at you. Perhaps it was the way the front most tendrils of his hair had come loose from where he'd properly combed it at the beginning of the day and now, at the close of it, he looked beyond need for a preen. Perhaps it was the sheen of his eyes and the way they were looking at you right now. Perhaps it was just Steve. That _must_ be it. Him.

"I'll have an aviation," you order to the bartender, and Steve's eyebrows raise in surprise.

"Wow," he breathes, a proud smirk on his lips as he readjusts his sleeves and rolls them halfway up his forearms, exposing his smooth-looking toned arms more than he had so far in the trip. His tie had come loose and was now looking a bit undone, but like everything Steve did, it was the most beautiful thing you have ever seen.

Your fingers move from your throat to your hair, patting unseen red curls back into their place, even though your hair was still pretty much where it had been since you put in your hair pins that morning before hitting the road. That was one of the beauties of your fiery auburn curls - they were, for the most part, fairly easy to tame into place.

 _Why did I wear a dress today? I feel like I'm trying too hard to fit in here_.

"What was that 'wow' for?" you question, resting your elbow comfortably against the edge of the bar and crossing your legs, turning your body to face him better.

"I didn't take you for a gin girl," he admitted with a chuckle before clearing his throat. "Sorry. _Woman_."

"It's alright," you tell him, removing your gloves finger by finger and placing them into your handbag where it lay on the bar. "So, where did our conversation leave off?"

Steve is silent for a moment as the bartender hands his Coke to him. "I think we were discussing what a beautiful state Texas was and now how lovely it is here in...where are we?"

"Hot Springs, Arkansas," you say, feeling your lips turn up into a smirk.

"Right!" he says, taking a swig of his Coke.

"Why Coke? Why not just have a beer if you would like some? I know you told me earlier today that your metabolism won't allow you to be drunk, so why not just have an alcohol?"

He seems contemplative at your question. "Hitting the hard questions now, are we?"

"Do _you_ consider that to be a hard question?"

"In a sense." You remain quiet to signal to him that you are eager to hear the answer and that you won't judge him either way. Watching as his tongue darts from between his lips to rewet them before he speaks again causes your skin to flutter and your heart to skip a beat. He, too, leans his elbow onto the counter as he lets down his guard and begins to loosen up in front of your eyes, and you know, in that moment, that you're in love with this man. You are in love with Steve Rogers. "I mean, I know that I shouldn't have alcohol regardless, but it no longer carries the risks with it that it once did in the days before my transformation, so why bother? I just want to have a Coke and enjoy the taste of it. No sense in putting anything into my body that doesn't taste as good or is as enjoyable as a good, cold bottle of Coke, you know?"

You can hear the light twang of his old New York accent shine through a bit, and you smile, nodding at him. "I _do_ understand that, actually, though I hope you don't mind if _I_ imbibe without you."

"I don't mind at all," he says, and you're instantly comforted by this.

"So, back to it." The bartender hands you your lovely, violet-colored cocktail with a cherry on a toothpick as a lovely garnish on top. You pluck the cherry from its place and plop it into the drink, lightly swirling the liquid around in the martini glass. "What kind of home are you going to be looking for when we get to Brooklyn?"

He takes another swallow of his Coke before responding. "I think I'm going to be looking for a family-sized home, something that would be good for any future family I have to live in." His gaze meets yours, almost as if pleading for your take on this thought, and you are surprised to see him acting so eager. You've read so much about his missions and all, but that man who went into the water months ago must've been baptized and born again in the frigid temperatures. The man sitting before you was so different from the man you've read about. This man seemed to have seen some kind of darkness and was struggling to regain composure and normalcy. He seemed like he was trying to come back from having been broken and put back together many, many times before.

"I completely understand that," you chime in, and he visibly relaxes. _Must be the Coke talking through his motions_. _Or exhaustion_. "I know I will need a home when I finally reach where I'm headed."

"And where _are_ you headed? Anything seem good to you so far?"

"No, these climates are far too hot for my taste. I would melt before I moved in." He laughs gently, and you are reminded of your love for him yet again, especially given that you caused that heavenly sound.

"So somewhere with milder weather might be just the ticket?" he asks, and you nod, sipping your refreshing cocktail, swirling the cherry around the glass. "Well, we can certainly keep our eyes peeled for the perfect home for you on our way."

"Or perhaps something in Brooklyn might catch my eye." Your words cause him to give you a look, one that seems both startled and intrigued by what your mouth had just let slip. _Damn, that gulp went right through me!_ You take another drink, a bigger one this time, before you can determine that that was, in fact, what had caused you to speak like that.

Soft tones of the deeper end of a piano fill your ears as the music plays from the jukebox, and you see Steve's spine straighten at the sound. You watch as a look of calm perplexion crosses his face and he pauses there for a few seconds. He then meets your gaze, a look of wonderment in them, and he rises from his barstool. He takes a few steps back, eyes never leaving yours for a second, and you are drawn in to his aura. Something has changed, and you feel compelled to be a part of whatever was happening.

Steve stands there for a few seconds, staring slightly downward at where you are frozen in your seat, every breath baited and anxious for what comes next. He outstretches his hand to you, the other arm relaxed calmly at his side, as if this was the next logical step. You probably would have never thought that this could be a response to a hidden meaning, but you're grateful that this is working in your favor.

Your eyes remain on his, blinking back the overwhelming emotion you feel at the gesture, and you know to take his hand would mean there would be no going back. So just like you had at Camp Lehigh, you leap.

You slide your fingers gently across his palm, electrified at the contact of your warm flesh against his rather mild skin, and he intakes a sharp breath. Gazes stay completely devoted to each other, sights meant only for the pair of you as he backs up a few more steps onto a designated dance floor, your body following smoothly and automatically.

He draws you into him, until your faces are inches apart. One of his hands moves to your waist, planting itself onto your hip while the other moves your already-connected hands into his chest. It seems from his body language that he is making moves to be as close to you as possible, and you're all too happy to indulge the attraction you've been feeling for days.

He begins to shift his feet against the wood in a gentle dance, keeping you drawn as closely to him as physicality will allow. Your breath is hard to catch as you inhale and exhale his very essence in the closest proximity you've ever held with anyone, let alone with an almost literal angel.

The music plays and the two of you sway to it slowly, hands clasped against his chest. Your other hand is wrapped around him, pressed into the back of his shirt and flattening the material against the muscles beneath. You don't want to miss a second of being so near to him that the two of you are literally breathing in the other's exhale, since it just feels like this was always meant to happen.

You've never felt more tantalized and enchanted by anyone in your life. His presence in your life is quite simply magic and you want to soak up as much of that energy as your existence will allow.

The song continues, and you don't know who the singer is or what the name of the song even is. It doesn't matter. All that _does_ matter is that Steve Rogers is holding you close to him, chilly blues sending waves of warmth across your body in ways that made you rethink every feeling of attraction you've ever felt before this moment.

~~**::::** ~~  
~~**::::** ~~  
~~**::::** ~~  
~~**::::** ~~

After the dance has come to a close, you both make your ways to your rooms separately, not a word being uttered between the two of you. Neither of you seems to have a follow-up to what has just happened, so you both part ways and head to your respective rooms in an attempt to find yourselves again.

Your hands are still shaking from the contact, but now it seems more impossible to catch your breath than ever. You know it's from a lack of his body being close to yours and you hate that you're finding it more and more difficult to be without him.

You remove your hair pins after changing into your white nightgown and tying your cream-colored dressing gown at your waist. The loose, lacy ruffles draping from your shoulders down to the hems nearest the floor and the same lacy ruffles making up one-third of your sleeves grace your skin softly, relaxing you somewhat, in spite of a lack of Steve.

You take a seat at the vanity, the velvety cushion cradling you as you brush the waves out of your hair. The strokes of your hairbrush normally put you into a hazy lull so that you drift off to sleep sooner and more easily, but you know that sleep won't come easily tonight, not with visions of Steve flooding your mind and the echo of his touch undulating against your fingertips.

You stare into the mirror, seeing nothing much past the faded red lipstick stain on your lips, your now-brushed out auburn curls touching your shoulders, and your wide minty-green eyes staring back at you.

_What now?_

And that's when the answer comes, an answer in the form of a knock at the door.

You are startled out of your daze, not sure how much time has passed since your dance with Steve and the moment you rise from the vanity seat and glide across the floor towards the door. Your fingers turn the doorknob slowly, opening it a crack.

Steve is there, staring at you from through the crack as if pressed against the door.

"Hey," he breathes, sounding rather out of breath.

"Steve," you say, opening the door wider.

"May I?"

You step back, allowing him to enter the room. He is wearing pajama trousers with thin blue stripes, a plain white t-shirt, and a loose-fitting button-up shirt that isn't buttoned. Slippers adorn his feet, but he looks rather unkempt everywhere else, and certainly flustered.

"Is everything alright?" you ask, closing the door and locking the chain behind you.

"I hope you weren't planning on sleeping tonight."

You step closer to him, folding your arms across your chest to steady them as you see his eyes notice your shaky hands. "I doubt I'll get there," you admit.

He nods and sighs, untucking a composition notebook from under his unbuttoned top, pulling a pencil from the pocket of his pants. "Me either, which is good. There's so much I need to tell you."

"Like what?"

" _Everything_."

_Oh, God._


	6. Chapter 6

The room you had paid for to sleep in was now littered with scraps of paper bearing rough sketches of all of his comrades from the future, both fallen and still living. Your eyes scan over the pages nearest you, ones of people you wish you'd known, people you wish you could meet because that would mean so much more to Steve than anything. Such a fact has become clearer to you with the past hours he has spent talking to you, telling you about everyone and everything that has been important to him and all of which has brought him right here, right to this moment. Right to him sitting nearby, Right to the pieces of his soul he has imprinted upon the mess of pages at your feet and lying on various surfaces throughout the room.

Your head is still rushing from the overload of information you have just received. Your hands grip your knees as you ponder the dizziness in your brain. Your mind is not clouded and is not fuzzied or misunderstanding - it is just overloaded as you process every detail you've just heard, every imagined scenario of true events he has shared with you. You can feel his eyes stare at you as if waiting for a guttural reaction that you know will never come, but your gaze meets his.

"...well?" he questions, and you can hear urgency masked as impatience in his voice.

You hesitate for a moment before rising from your seat and stepping over to the hot plate in the corner. "I...I could never regale you with the achievements of my life as they are few," you admit, somewhat embarrassed that you can't even begin to thrill him with your own adventures. After a few moments and one hot pot of tea later, you pour each of you a fresh cup and you bring his to him before taking your seat again.

His hands grip the cup with obvious care as if he's afraid he will shatter the ceramic, and it suddenly dawns on you that that is how has treated your entire relationship so far. Like you're fragile. Like he's afraid he will break you. "It's so strange to talk about it all like that. I've never done that before." You hear the honesty in his tone, and you're grateful that he has taken this moment to be so forthcoming with you.

"Then why start now?" You can't contain the quickness in your response, and you swallow the next bit of tea too quickly as well, burning a lasting feeling into the back of your throat. "Why spend the entire night telling me all of your adventures and near-death experiences?"

Steve's eyes meet yours, and the ice-color of his stare drowns you in its intensity. "Because I trust you...I want you to know me."

The heat beneath your skin begins to rise and you find your heart fluttering at the sound of his words and the depth of his meaning. "I'm beyond flattered that you chose me."

"That's just it - I didn't choose you. The moment chose now." He takes another sip of his tea before rising from his seat to place it onto the dresser nearby.

You would have been hurt by this statement of his, if it hadn't been for the fact that you knew there was more to it than that. You knew that couldn't be what he meant, that he wasn't choosing you. It couldn't be...right? "So you're saying I have 'the moment' to thank for this flood of impossible truths?"

"No, it's...it's difficult to explain..." He begins to pace, a sense of explanation crowding his entire existence, and you are more than longing to hear what he has to say for himself. "...but I was sitting in my room, getting ready to go to bed, when I had this sudden urge - no, a need, a pull - to come here and tell you all of it, every last moment. I don't know how else to put it...but I needed you." Your heart drops at the words dripping from his thin-but-supple lips. You know he has been longing to say this for a long time, and he just has, so the heavy air around him lifts. "I hope that's not too bold of me to say."

His honesty has broken your spirit down into its purest and most definitive form. You have so much to tell him on your own, but words are not something to waste where you're concerned. You long to bear your soul to him as he has done for you, but you know that there isn't much to tell. Still, you have always abided by quid pro quo and now is no exception. Once again, you leap off the edge into the unknown, your heart catching in your throat. "No, not at all. I think...on the deepest level, I wanted to hear your stories, your triumphs, your heartbreak...I just didn't want to ask you for it." Your eyes can see it in his - is that longing? Is it passion? It doesn't matter - regardless, it is affection behind his eyes, and you are there for it. "I think - no, I know I needed you to need me."

Steve's eyes soften and he grins gently to himself as if there is some kind of joke that only he knows the punchline to, and you want him to spend the rest of his life retelling it to you. "So what's your story?"

Your entire body tenses at the question you hadn't expected. "You've read my file."

"Come on. There's a lot more to you than what's typed onto those pages."

"Like what? What is it you want to know?" Truly you want to tell him, but you can see that he senses your hesitancy and uncertainty, and you hate that he has to see you so seemingly unwilling to open up.

Steve shrugs slightly. "I don't know - your hopes and dreams, your doubts, your desires, your likes and dislikes - "

"That's quite a bit." You know that it's rude to interrupt, but you can't help it. You're beginning to feel overwhelmed by all of this, by this entire interaction and by the fact that you are about to tell him everything about yourself.

"I wanna know everything." He looks for a moment like he might take your hand into his, but he twitches back and refrains, leaving you wanting so much more. "I wanna know you."

You take a deep breath, deciding to take a turn about the room while he sits down. Walking has always helped you to breathe better and to clear your mind of malignancies, and now is no exception. Your mind clears and you're ready to spill your soul, ready to give everything you have to him. You are his. "I was born in Bath, in England, but was raised in Bristol by my aunt. They recruited me for MI-5 during the Blitz when my neighborhood was destroyed. I became a gopher, always doing missions that would be considered mundane to other agents." You pause here, knowing full-well what comes next in your saga, but you don't pull back. Not now. "I met George Daniels... and soon we were engaged." Your eyes meet Steve's and you can see that he is almost visibly uncomfortable by hearing this, but this is not the end of your story so you continue on. "George was shipped off to France and was killed in action." Steve's expression and demeanor both soften upon hearing this. You wish you could find physical comfort in his arms over your past mishappenings, but instead you continue on, determined more than ever to finish your life story. "I became a liaison for MI-5 with SSR in the States, and, eventually, they officially transferred me here. I continued my missions, but then there was a period of darkness where I had no work. After about a year of nothing, they reinstated me for a final mission before retiring...and now, here I sit." There is a long pause after you finish, as if he is waiting for whatever you have to say next, though nothing comes. "Anything else you'd like to know?"

Steve folds his broad arms across his chest and stares at you with the most vital of intensities. "Was that everything?"

You nod, certain that you've told him everything that you could think of at the time. "Everything that comes to mind."

"Tell me about George."

The subject of George is not a sore spot for you as it perhaps once had been, so you are more than happy to indulge him. "He was what I needed and he died on me. What else is there to know?"

"That's the second time you've said 'need' and not 'love.' Did you love him?"

"No." The word drips from your tongue before you could calculate how automatic the reply truly was. You have never spoken more quickly or more truthfully.

"Then why marry him?"

"I was lonely and he wasn't a risk. I would've been able to live a normal life like I'm supposed to."

"'Supposed to'? What about what you want?"

"What about what I want?"

Steve raises his eyebrows. "Well, what would make you happy?"

You have never been asked this question before, but this is different. It's as if Steve is meant to know your answer because he could be the one to provide it. Your fingers wring together, pulling until the knuckles whiten. "To fall madly in love. To get married and live in a beautiful house and have lots of kids...and be happy."

Steve smiles fondly at your dreams and your heart pounds at the sight. "Then do that."

Your face falls and you avert your gaze from his eyes. The room's tension begins to rise and its all you can do to keep as calm as possible. "It's not that simple, Steve."

"Yes! Ophelia, it is." His voice is firm, not stern, but you know you need to hear this, More specifically, it had to be him to tell you.

Finally your eyes rise to meet his and you release the grip your fingers have on each other. "And what about what you want? What do you want?"

"I want you." His words are final, and you can see his throat catch at how quickly he had blurted those words. Your head spins with the weight of what he has just confessed, and you take a seat abruptly, having felt your knees give way. Steve's breathing changes to a quickened pace, and he begins to take his own turn about the room for a moment while he allows his words to settle on your mind and on the heaviness of your eyelids as they flutter back the tears threatening to form. Steve then walks over to you and crouches a bit so that you can better see eye-to-eye. "All that you see of yourself is surface, but there is so, so much more to you than that and I want it all. The complexities, the idiosyncrasies, the stoicism - all of it. I want you."


	7. Chapter 7

You still can't believe your ears, several hours after that harrowing - albeit _heartwarming_ \- admission on his part. You're not sure why he has chosen to want you, or even if he _did_ choose. You know you hadn't prepared to fall for such an immaculate man, and now that he has admitted his attraction to you, you're less sure than ever of what will befall the pair of you with the air far from cleared.

The two of you sit in silence as you are on the road again. The car seems so much smaller, so constricting that you feel your throat close from the anxiety of it all. Your heart hasn't stopped pounding and your hands haven't ceased shaking since he ended your night-long conversation with his heartbreaking words, and you're not sure that they ever will.

Steve glances over at you, you notice out of the corner of your eye, but he says nothing as his eyes continue to be on the road. You're driving right now, thank God, so it's difficult for him to see your shaky hands, but you can guarantee that your white-knuckled, two handed grip on the steering wheel is telling.

 _I can't breathe..._ you think to yourself as you crack your window slightly to let in a bit of the air rushing by. You're only driving at a speed of 35 miles per hour, the unfortunate speed limit that has been countrywide since the war began, though the government hasn't yet seen fit to release that hold yet. Still, the heat outdoors with a fresh, dry breeze is enough to give your rigidity some release.

Then Steve breaks said tension.

Your hazel eyes remain locked on the road ahead, and you feel it. His warm, broad hand stretches across one of yours where it is locked on the wheel. Your eyes flicker over to see him looking at you with sympathetic warmth, and your heart melts. The moment his skin touches yours, your white-knuckled grip softens and he tucks his fingers through yours, threading them together as if there was no other option, as if this was where his fingers were meant to be. You feel your brows slant from the affectionate gesture you have allowed, and your hand falls with his to the space between the material of your skirt and that of his trousers.

You can hardly believe it has taken the pair of you this long to get to this point, but here you are. Your eyes notice that his fingers hold yours in a steadfast manner as if to tell you that he is there for you, that he will _always_ be here with you, and your body finally begins to relax.

Your fingers have been limp inside of his for a few moments, but now you tighten your grip around them, pressing your skin back into his as you feel his palm shift on the back of your hand as if to be even nearer to you.

The pair of you remains this way, hands locked together lovingly until the next stop.

~~::::~~  
~~::::~~

Silence once again rules the day between the pair of you, and neither of you speaks a word as you head to your respective rooms. It is not too late in the evening yet, but the fact that neither of you slept last night and remained awake throughout the whole of this day means that both of you are far more exhausted than your empty stillness is saying to each other.

Steve walks you to your door and you don't know what to do, but give him a soft smile of gratitude for the chivalry before closing the door behind you and dropping your bag onto your bed.

"Wait..." you mutter aloud though you only have yourself for an audience. You find that you are missing his presence, and you quickly cross the room to your door, driven by some otherworldly force pulling you back into his magnetism.

Your heart once again pounds, this time in your ears, as you pass over patterned carpet, aware that your hands are shaking slightly and your eyes are welling with inexplicable tears, droplets that will never fall - they are merely an extension of the emotional turmoil you're feeling without him by your side. Or, better yet, touching your very skin.

Your knuckles, no longer white as they had been earlier that day, rap decidedly against the wood of his door. You are forced to wait a few painstaking moments before knocking again, this time just before he opens the door and your tremulous hand retracts to your side.

His glacial blues look at you with a gentle kind of surprise at the sight of you, and you hitch your gaze to his, unwavering regardless of how your knees suddenly match the wobbliness of your hands.

You remove your gaze from his and march past him into his room, grabbing his suitcase where it lay on his bed like yours in the next room. Leaving the room past him, you hear him close the door behind him and follow you into your room, shutting the door as you resolutely place his bag onto the adjacent bed.

Your gaze meets his once more, and this time there is an understanding, a familiarity with what you mean, even without the words to solidify it. He has correctly interpreted that you are a woman of few words, and feel especially against the wasting of words, as shown in the gesture of bringing his belongings into your room to share a space. You cannot be without him near you, not one more night, and he has perceived your meaning and seems to agree as well as he begins to move towards you.

The carpet beneath your heels now feels a bit heavy, like burying your bare feet in the wet sand of an incoming tide. The earth is shifting now, and it's bringing the pair of you together in the most hypnotic, entrancing pull.

The coolness of his admiration meets the warm invitation of yours as he reaches for your face, touching your cheek with the most tender care. It's as if you're made of glass, and he doesn't want to break you as he cups the outside of your cheek and draws his forehead down to meet yours.

For a few moments, or perhaps it was hours, the pair of you stand so close, you practically on your tiptoes to meet his forehead with yours, fingers painted with fire red pressing into the material on his shoulders. Your other hand grips the back of his neck, feeling the short hairs from his haircut, though they feel soft to the touch, as does his skin. Free of blemish.

Breaths are one, hearts beat in sync. Wordlessly, his hands grab your smaller hand and pull it to the center of his chest, pressing into the shirt there until your palm is flat against the muscles masked underneath. You feel all at once that his heart is racing, and you pull back to meet his smile with your own.

You mimic his movement, taking your free hand and taking hold of one of his as you fold his hand in between your breasts, causing him to intake a sharp breath. You flatten his hand as he had done for you, so that he may feel your own rapidity. His eyes widen, almost surprised, and you let loose a soft laugh as he, too, smiles brightly at the realization.

Taking your face within one of his hands again, he draws you back into him, this time, pressing his lips to yours in the firmest, most tender of lip-presses. You melt under the weight of his kiss, pushing your lips against his in response, suddenly wondering if you're doing this right. _Is this the way Peggy once kissed him?_

You shake Peggy from your thoughts. _Not here. Not now_. Not with your mouths meshed together in the most dreamy kiss you've ever experienced.


End file.
